No One Left For Us To Blame
by StitchAndRepair
Summary: Mickey lives his life like a soldier in combat.


Just a little drabble based on the snippet I wrote on Tumblr (likeacowsopinion)  
For Megan because she gave us all A Move Too Far and it's perfect. :')  
Mickey lives his life like a soldier in combat.  
He's been called reckless, dangerous, a weapon of destruction on the streets of Southside, Chicago. But despite what everyone thinks, he's not stupid. He's not reckless. Thought and planning goes into his actions; he knows well enough not to go after the Costello boys unless absolutely necessary; he knows not to rob from the Kash 'n' Grab if Towelhead is around and he knows that going into a fight all guns blazing is stupid and will end up with him getting injured. Mickey assesses every situation, calculates the pros and cons, scopes out every building before he goes into it.

He's usually pretty spot on too. He can find every exit in a building, spot a person's weak spot and hit it before they get the chance to take him down. He knows Southside like the back of his hand, could tell you where to buy the best weed, which streets to avoid and what the best times of day are to go shoplifting.  
Growing up as a Milkovich had its perks; by the time Mickey was 9 he had run of the streets, with his older brothers and his dad. Everyone knew which turf was theirs and not to fuck with them. Terry dragged the boys up making sure they were prepared for every situation, and it worked. Any problems that Mickey faced were dealt with through what he'd learned from watching his old man; violence, a bat to the knees, a threat growled out between bared teeth, the mention of his dad's name. And it worked.

Except the only thing Mickey was never prepared for, never signed up for, was Ian Gallagher.

It's the first time Mickey's gone into something blind, and he hated every second of it. Hated when it felt good, hated that he wasn't prepared for it to feel so good. Didn't really know what good felt like before he met Ian.

He tried to keep his wits about him, cover all bases, make sure he knew where every exit was and keeping them in plain sight. He stuck to rules and made damn sure Gallagher did too. But then suddenly the rules were being broken and, no matter how much Mickey fought and pushed, he kept losing sight of every way out and before he knew it, he was trapped. He was trapped in this... thing with Ian and he didn't know what to do. He didn't know how to act.

He lost sight of things when he was with Ian. Time slowed down around them and for the first time he didn't feel like he was standing on the front line. The enemy wasn't stood in front of him, guns raised, red laser aimed between his eyes. For a while, the few seconds, minutes, hours he was around Ian, Mickey could shed his armor, take off the camouflage that blended him so seamlessly into the grey streets of Chicago.  
For the first time, Mickey felt as though someone was standing beside him, on his side. And after a while he got used to the feeling, craved it. The calm that Gallagher brought, along with a different kind of thrill that Mickey would never get used to, but liked anyway. His heart pounded in his chest with Ian, but it was different than the fast beating he felt when he pointed a gun at someone. It was different to the pulsing in his ears he felt when he was high on coke. It was different in a way he couldn't explain and he wanted more and more of it.  
Things got fucked up along the way and what they had was compromised; they got caught. Then Ian was angry in a way he'd never been, begging and pleading and forcing Mickey to confront something he never wanted to. Suddenly Ian was on the other side, behind enemy lines, making Mickey do something he couldn't. He was no longer standing beside him, but against him. So Mickey reacted on instinct, in the only way he knew how, the only way he'd ever known: violence, a threat growled out between bared teeth, a punch to Ian's jaw, a boot to Ian's face.  
Ian got on the bus on a Saturday morning. The first snow had fallen the night before and Mickey had sat watching it for hours, thinking of the time last year when him and Ian had got high on MD and thought it'd be smart to lay in his front garden and make snow angels, except the snow ended up feeling so good on their backs, they just laid there and spoke for hours, laughing at each other's gurning faces and dilated pupils, unable to feel the cold.  
Ian left for the army on a Saturday morning, bags packed and not even a glance behind him, and as the bus drove away, Mickey swallowed the lump in his throat at the thought of facing Southside alone.  
Mickey lives his life like a soldier in combat. Always has. That's the way Milkoviches operated - kill or be killed, dog eat dog. But Ian felt, to him, like coming home from a warzone. Mickey didn't get the burning feeling in chest, the itchiness under his skin when he was around Gallagher. Like the effects of a good joint, Gallagher calmed him, switched off his mind, switched off Southside and shut out the entire world. He even found himself being almost nice and laughing, cracking jokes around Gallagher. Comfortable in way he's never been. It's funny that to Mickey, Ian is like coming home and to Ian, Mickey is like shipping out. An emotional warzone for a real one. A soldier of Southside and a soldier of the United States Army.

Throw it all away  
Lets lose ourselves  
Cause there's no one left for us to blame  
Its a shame we're all dying  
And do you think you deserve your freedom

How could you send us all far away from home  
When you know damn well that this is all  
I would still lay down my life for you

And do you think you deserve your freedom  
No I don't think you do

There's no justice in the world

There's no justice in the world

And there never was (Muse - Soldiers Poem)  
- No One Left For Us To Blame.


End file.
